An Opinion On All The Casey Anthony Opinions

I have neither interest nor opinion on the Casey Anthony acquittal. 

No offense to those who followed the trial.  It is interesting.  We all love a “truth-is-stranger-than-fiction” tale.  (My weaknesses are natural disasters and survival stories.)

I do have an opinion on the reaction to the acquittal, though.  The word that best describes this reaction:  visceral.  On Facebook, folks are lamenting how stupid we Americans are, or at least twelve particular Americans, and how broken our system is, and how really terribly awfully difficult it was to watch that terrible awful woman’s reaction to the verdict that frees her.

I’m thinking:  why are you watching then?  Why does her reaction matter to you?  Who can judge a human’s reaction to the announcement of her fate?  Even hubs got into a wee bit of a familial Facebook debate on the topic.

It should be no surprise, then, that I avoid these publicized trials like the plague.  What is this need to pick a side?  What is the point of picking a side in a situation where you have no control nor firsthand knowledge?

How do folks so easily assume they know better than the twelve who sat and watched the trial, weighed the credibility of witnesses, took the judge’s instructions, and pored over the evidence?

Suddenly, I’m reminded why lynch mobs are a bad thing.

You’ll find no debate over facts of the case here.  You’ll find a lively discussion at Stacy McCain’s Big Dog Blog, as usual.  The best “pro-acquittal” comment is here, and the best “anti-acquittal” here.

In that comment string, reasonable minds are definitely differing as to the merits of the prosecution’s case.  The jurors probably had differing opinions, too.  Trouble is, they all have to agree in the end.

Trouble is, the system is set up to err on the side of letting the guilty free.  “Beyond a reasonable doubt” is a stiff standard.  Is that gal guilty?  Let’s see . . . the victim was two years old, she’s the victim’s mom, and she’s a lying eejit.  So yes, she is likely guilty.  More likely than not.

Oops.  “More likely than not” is the standard in a civil trial, not a criminal one.

I know, I know, the CSI effect.  Supposedly, folks aren’t willing to convict unless the case is wrapped up with Christmas bows, as tidy as the TV shows.

To those who blame the CSI effect, I ask:  did it prevent Lizzie Borden’s conviction?

That’s right, Lizzie Borden, circa 1893.  We all know her as the chick that axe-murdered her parents.  She was acquitted, notwithstanding boatloads of circumstantial evidence.

I repeat, the system is set up to err on the side of letting the guilty free.  It stinks, sometimes.  The murderer gets away with it, sometimes.

That fact is proof that the system is still working.

We should be more alarmed about an unchecked prosecuting government than an unhinged partying woman who may have killed her own child.

Cold?  Maybe.  But it’s cold comfort for the innocent whom the state still managed to wrongfully convict, even under the “reasonable doubt” standard.

Which is worse?  The guilty going free, or the innocent getting convicted?  As a liberty lover with a healthy suspicion of state power, I say:  the innocent getting convicted. 

Moreover, should I ever serve on a jury, I expect folks to respect my decision.  That means I have to respect their decisions, too, doesn’t it?

A shorter Linda:  Da Tech Guy.

Oh dear:  She’s pregnant?  Let’s hope not, for safety’s sake.

An interesting theory.

An even more interesting argument:  it’s just a late-term abortion.

Instalanche!  Thank you, Glenn Reynolds.  Especially for the “read the whole thing.”  Wow, I’m smiling.

Encore

Just because it’s so good.

Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor:

. . . My life was being snuffed out in the name of women’s rights.  And ladies and gentlemen, I would not have cerebral palsy, had I not survived all of this.  So when I hear the appalling, disgusting argument that we should have abortions because the child just might be disabled . . . .

Ugh.  The horror that fills my heart.  Ladies and gentlemen, there are things that you will only be able to learn by the weakest among us.  And when you snuff them out you are the one that loses.  The Lord looks after them, but you are the one that will suffer forever.

And that arrogance–what absolute arrogance, and it has been an argument for so long in this human place, where the stronger should dominate the weaker, and should determine who lives and who dies.

The arrogance of that!

Don’t you realize?

That you cannot make your own heart beat.

Don’t you realize that all the power that you think you possess, you really possess none of it.  It is the mercy of God that sustains you.  Even when you hate Him.

 

When Topics Collide

When topics collide in an unexpected manner, then it feels postworthy.

Of course, a lot of blog brethren wrote about the horrow show that was Dr. Gosnell’s Murder Mill. 

But I didn’t realize that the woman he killed was a recently arrived refugee.  Ms. Corcoran over at Refugee Resettlement Watch points this fact out.  (If you don’t read her stuff regularly, you should.)  Karnamaya Monger had been in the United States only four months.  The bitter irony of it:

“She was born in Bhutan and then survived nearly two decades in refugee camps. She had finally immigrated to Woodbridge, Virginia, only to die in a squalid, Pennsylvania abortion clinic, filled with bags of aborted fetuses.”

Corcoran asks the question, who resettled this woman?  The question is a good one, because these resettlement agencies are 1) usually church-affiliated, and 2) remain involved in the refugee’s new life for months, in order to help her settle into the new culture.

So, was a Catholic or Lutheran agency involved in getting this Virginia-settled refugee up to Dr. Gosnell’s abortion clinic in Pennsylvania?

Aren’t Catholics and Lutherans supposed to be pro-life?

Just a question.

In Lieu Of Original Thought

I’m going to direct you to some favority things I’ve run into this week.

First, while finding out what SDH posted on Small Dead Animals to give me that traffic boost, I clicked over to The Grey Lady and found a funny parental anecdote in Behold and Learn.  Too clever.

Next, you probably found this on Instapundit like I did.  But if you overlooked it, then you must click over now to see the photo that made Charlie Foxtrot think, “This Establishment Under New Management.”

Now onto a little bit of royal goodness:

“Watching the slow-motion hypocrisy train wreck of a group like the SEIU stamping its feet for ObamaCare then screaming even louder for a waiver should be an eye-opener to anyone with a functioning brain cell.”

Read the rest and get your KS fix.

Finally, MK explains the implications of Obama’s past opposition to a bill protecting babies born alive during an abortion:

“A person like him, one so morally bewildered, so blinded by his ideology to the evil that he spoke for is not fit to represent me, let alone lead any nation.”

Amen, MK.

P.S.  Thanks SDH.  You give my blog a mini-lanche every time you link me at Small Dead Animals.

Inspirational Video

Via a recently discovered blogger, Political Junkie Mom, comes a riveting speech by Gianna Jessen.  You may be already familiar with her life story:  she survived a late-term abortion and lives with cerebral palsy as a result. 

I had already heard her story, but I hadn’t heard the gal herself. 

It’s like the difference between listening to someone describe a gorgeous landscape and experiencing it for yourself.

“I didn’t survive so I could make everyone comfortable.  I survived so I could stir things up a bit.  And I have a great time doing it.  . . . I should be blind; I should be burned; I should be dead, and yet I am not.”

The first part is about nine minutes long; the second is about six minutes.  Yes, that is a bit on the long side, but I bet you’ll find her speech entirely worth those minutes. 

The part that spoke to me loudest:  when she says, we need to stand up and be willing to be hated.

Because hated, we are.

I’m adding Political Junkie Mom to me lil blog list, by the way.  I like the cut of her jib.